Never Forgotten
by Silver Fire Vampyre
Summary: Esme has been sad, lonely,and hurt that she lost her first born child. When she attempted suicide she didn’t expect the baby to have made it out alive in the end. Now a strange teenager arrives. Why doesn't she change and what is she doing in Forks? ExB
1. The First Sign

Hello my faithful readers. Here's my next story and this one is all about Esme and Edward's struggles. No worries Bella _will _come in later so don't fret. Just stay with me until she does. On with the story!

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Esme's POV

"Where have the years gone?" I asked myself as I looked into the gilded mirror. Although vampires didn't exactly change -at all- my expression had. My eyes held much more wisdom than any normal 27-year-olds should have. Never changing, never growing but always moving forward. I looked squarely into the eyes that were reflected back at me. Not only did the wise eyes in the mirror hold wisdom anymore but pain, hurt, and an overall heavy burden that no one should have to carry, it was then that I thought back.

I thought back, back to a time that was much simpler than today and one that was much easier to understand. Unfortunately, it wasn't any easier to handle than this one, and my memory had the sharpness of a vampire- you couldn't un-think one thought, they were never forgotten. Old thoughts were the same thoughts and, even though they were buried behind more previous ones, they were still there, and they caused a burning, heart wrenching pain inside of me. I could imagine the deep color that her eyes would be. The way her hair would curl slightly when she left it alone, and the way she would smile.

I would have seen a lot of Charles in her, more than me but I would have seen myself in there as well. Maybe some honey in her hair, or the paleness of her skin with freckles, like I'd had. Maybe her smile would even look like mi- NO! I had to stop daydreaming about her. She wasn't even existent anymore! That's what had caused all of this. If I could have cried I would have, but I am a vampire and we can't. Should-a, would-a, could-a's were all that existed for me now.

My beautiful baby, I had even told Charles and some of the nurses what I would name her when she came to me, but now I couldn't bear to even think the name now. If I did I would end up dry-sobbing my heart out until Carlisle came home and found me. Or worse- the kids might. They all knew what I had gone through. We didn't keep any secrets in the house, but Edward- my closest son- knew me best and he would pity it.

I wished that I didn't need the pity. I wished everything had gone alright during the birth, but life never seemed to work our precisely the way I planned it to. Sometimes that was a good thing- it had lead me to Carlisle and I didn't regret the fact that he had saved my life. I never would, because I was happy with my family now, and I had him. I could live through anything now if I had him. There was only one thing that I wouldn't be able to put up with was losing and that was another one of my children.

I wouldn't be able to handle that, no matter what anyone else said I would find some way to save every single one of them if they got into the slightest bit of trouble. I wasn't going to lose them the way I lost my bouncing baby girl.

I walked stiffly away from the mirror so that I wouldn't have to look at my own pain-filled eyes. I walked downstairs to the living room where Emmett and Jasper had made a mess while playing Guitar Hero. I knew I couldn't blame Edward because he hardly every stooped to the other boys' foolish games. He had an old-soul. It fit him, oddly enough and he was so special to me that I wouldn't push him. Although the others had all found their special mates, Edward remained alone, and that worried the hell out of me.

I couldn't understand how Edward, wonderful, talented Edward, continued to be mate less, wifeless, and lonely. Although Tanya, a dear friend of ours, had clearly offered to try out a relationship (in a not-so-subtle way, might I add) he still refused, saying that she "just wasn't exactly what he was looking for". Even though he had done this in a gentlemanly fashion I could tell that he wanted so much to say yes. Not out of desire or because he thought he was lonely, on the contrary he believed that he didn't need a mate, that he was complete within himself. But he knew my every thought and he knew that I worried about him.

He also wanted to say yes, not just to please me, but Tanya as well. He was upset that by refusing her offer she might be angry with him and would think of himself badly- he never went against the rules of a gentleman. Unfortunately for him, by refusing Tanya he only made her more resolved to get the guy that she wanted which, in this case, was Edward. She threw herself at him again and again to no avail. It wasn't that horrible, but I did feel bad for him.

Anyways, back to the living room, it was one huge mess! I was going to have to sit the boys down and have a long talk with them about respecting the rules of the house. Then the next time we moved and they destroyed yet another living room they would use some poor excuse like; "You said that about the _last_ house not _this _house." What was I going to do with them? Boys will be boys, I suppose, and I'll love them no matter what.

I quickly cleaned up the room with my enhanced speed, picking up ripped pillows, some balloon skins, a bag of human chips that Emmett had tried to make Jasper eat, and some pieces of… MY FAVORITE VASE!!! THEY WERE SO GOING TO GET IT AS SOON AS THEY GOT HOME!

It was then that I heard the familiar purr of a Volvo hitting the pavement about 10 miles away. I glanced at the clock. "Perfect timing," I thought grinning to myself. I put the broken pieces of my vase into a plastic bag and, though it hurt me to do it, I stomped on it some more, making the five large broken pieces become on splinters of what it had been. I then took the bag back over to the now clean living room, set it on the coffee table and calmly awaited the arrival of my five adopted, vampire children.

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Emmett walked through the door first followed by Rose, Jasper, Alice, and Edward. I set my face so that no emotion showed. Not that it helped much, Jasper could read ever emotion that was passing through me, including my still near-hysterical thoughts of my daughter and, although I was also furious, my feelings for my lost daughter were still stronger than the fury. I tried to bury them but, of course, he could sense that too. I had to remember that Edward had probably heard what I was thinking as he got into close range of our house so he knew why I had a bag of splintered glass on the table. He had a smirk on his face as he looked towards Jasper and Emmett.

As the two boys entered the room I could see that they were surprised that everything was clean. Then they gaze fell on the smashed bag-o-vase. They locked eyes with me, and I could tell that mine showed more of the anger instead of the hysterics this time. They could tell that they were gonna get it. I motioned for them to sit down, and I waved the other three on, but they decided to stay in the room to see what would happen, although Edward just stayed to watch the plan -he had seen in my head- play out.

The other two boys sat down on the reassembled couch obediently. They were staring at the bag and had a WTF-is-going-on look planted on their faces. I cleared my throat.

"Does anyone want to explain to me what happened to my vase?" I asked in one of those deadly-calm voices. They could sense the change in my tone and they scrambled to explain.

"See. Uh, well. We…were gonna fix everything… and uh," Emmett gulped down air to try and explain.

"It wasn't that, um…broken when w-we left. There were only a couple of pieces and were gonna crazy glue 'em back together, but, we, u-uh couldn't and we had to leave so the… um, stupid h-humans wouldn't suspect anything." Jasper stuttered out. They knew that if I got mad then they were going to regret it. Even though mothers were always loving, they could go evil if they wanted to.

"Does it look like you could crazy glue it back together now?" I asked them.

"N-no." They answered at the same time.

"Well then I guess you going to have to try really hard then, aren't you?" I asked them in a pleasant tone. The looks of confusion on their faces told me that they had no idea what I meant. Rose, Alice, and Edward on the other hand, knew exactly what I was up to.

"Well get going already." I said. Again, they had on the WTF looks. "Clean it up." They still didn't respond. "Use the crazy glue and fix your mess." I left them to it. It would either take hours to fix it or they would have to find an exact replica of the vase. Vampire or no vampire, you couldn't force the pieces of a splinter back together…well, you could but you might just break it. My other three children left the room with excuses like; "Sorry, Jasper, homework." or "Emmett, I already told you on the way here that I had to paint my nails". Emmett and Jasper went to their last resort.

"Come on Edward, PLEASSSSSEEEEEE" Emmett begged him.

"Edward you HAVE to help us." Jasper whined. I could tell that Edward thought this was hilarious.

"No way guys, you got yourselves into this mess, now you have to get yourselves out." He was snickering on his way to the kitchen. I heard the rattling of glass shards as the other two boys set off to work, most likely going to the dining room table. Edward entered the kitchen.

At first he was quiet, just sitting on the stool by the island. I was staring at the blue prints to one of the new buildings that the humans were building in Seattle. Sometimes the humans started building things well and they got so full of themselves from doing a good job that they just expected the rest of it to be perfect. Take this building for example. They had started out well but they got cocky and now they were putting support rods in the wrong locations! They were going to end up knocking the building down if they couldn't correct it soon enough or, if the didn't spot it, the building could collapse if too much pressure was but on a certain floor.

Luckily my stay-at-home job was looking over the designs and telling the contractors what I thought of their ideas. I would call them up as soon as I was sure that Jasper and Emmett weren't making prank calls. I heard Edward laugh, he must have heard that. At least he didn't hear me earlier when I was thinking about HER… oh great, damn it all! I just did it again. Edward's laughter was gone and as I looked he had a saddened expression on his face. I knew this would happen eventually- that he would catch me thinking about HER. The only thing that I didn't know was that I would be the one to LET him catch me.

He sighed. A sure sign that he was either going to do something to show how he pitied me for all that I've gone through or he's going to tell Carlisle about it. Most of the time it turned out to be option 2.

"Please, Edward?" I asked in a small voice, though I had meant for it to come out strong and sure and not as a question at all really but a command that he wouldn't tell his father figure. He looked at me with pain in his own eyes. It hurt him for me to be hurt. That was just the kind of person that Edward was, it came naturally to him to care about others.

"Esme… you know that Carlisle worries about you. You had reason enough to kill yourself while you were human, it's no different as a vampire." His words were true. Nothing had changed now that I had lost my daughter, and the Volturi hadn't seemed like a bad idea at first… NO! I had Carlisle now and I loved him- he was my soul mate! I would never leave him no matter how much it hurt.

"Edward, I won't leave my family." My voice rang with finality. He smiled at me."I know you won't Esme, we won't let you. We love you too much." He said. He may believe that we've lost our souls, but he knew that love still existed for everyone.

"Have you heard about the new family moving into town?" Edward moved on to a lighter subject.


	2. New Arrival

**AN//: Hello my lovelies! I'm glad your reading. For those of you who PM-ed me- Bella DOES come in, can you guess as who? No? Oh, well maybe next chapter you will. LOLZ. Okay well keep reading and PLEASE don't hesitate to review!**

Edward's POV

New Arrival

We had gone through the school day like any other. As soon as we walked through the door Jasper and I grimaced. The emotions of lust and the lust-filled thoughts sent my head spinning and were too overwhelming to handle. Jasper was just lucky that it wasn't directed at _him. _We'd already been here for a year and a half. When were the human girls here going to realize that I wasn't going to "date" any of them?

I heard the gossip as I entered the school building. Although, none of the humans conversed with us, we could practically taste the excitement in the air. The new student was arriving tomorrow. She had visited on one of the days that the entire family had skipped for fun. Surprisingly Alice didn't see her coming at all. It scared her senseless but to the rest of us it was hilarious; we didn't sense any harm that would come from some human. We're vampires! It's not like they could hurt us anyways.

None of the humans had looked straight at her so I couldn't' get a picture of her profile out of their thoughts. No- I could get a picture, but her scent still lingered around the halls. It was barely there since it had been a week since we'd been here and the other humans had masked it with their own scents. It was a familiar scent somehow. We all agreed that we'd smelled something like it before and we also agreed that it was near impossible that we'd ever met the human, which it belonged to, before. We couldn't figure out why it seemed like we knew it or where we knew it from, the weirdest part was that it was comforting. It was like since we knew it, it couldn't be a threat.

Besides, we didn't really have many enemies. As I was going through my thoughts, the obnoxious bell rang somewhere between a B flat and an A sharp- it was the most annoying sound in my daily life. I hurried out to my car before the other teenagers could even contemplate that the school day had come to a close. I stood beside my pride and joy of a car, which stuck out like a sore thumb in the mob of old Fords and Cadillacs. I quickly examined it, making sure nothing had damaged the shimmering exterior, and jumped in, awaiting my brothers and sister.

Even though Emmett was in my last period Spanish class, he had gone looking for Rosalie in her Science class across the school grounds. They arrived at the car and piled into my Volvo. I growled at Emmett when he slammed the door. We were nearing home, about 15 miles away when Jasper hissed in pain. His power worked over a longer distance then mine did. I could see in his head that the pain had been building for three miles back and he was trying to hold it in so not to scare Alice. She looked up at him in alarm. From the pain in his head I could tell that the immense hurt was coming from the direction of our house. I speed up.

As I got within about 11 miles of the house I began to see hear the mind of my mother. She was walking away from the huge mirror that hung in her bedroom. She went downstairs to find the mess in the living room that Jasper and Emmett had created last night while on a Guitar Hero frenzy. She cleaned up the room at vampire speed, sensing that this was all Jasper and Emmett's doing since she thought I wouldn't stoop to their level. I smirked in the rearview mirror towards the two immature boys. I stopped when words of undeniable rage filled her thoughts.

She had found her vase.

_Flashback_

_Emmett and Jasper were going around with pillows after Emmett shoved a potato chip down Jasper's throat and Jasper wanted revenge. They had gotten just a little to close to the small table near the bottom of the stairs when Emmett swung a bit too hard and Jasper ducked. The pillow went on swinging into the vase. It fell to the ground with a CRASSSH splitting into five separate, but equally broken pieces. _

_"SHIT!" Emmett cursed. _

"_Well, you big idiot, what are you going to do now?" Jasper asked with a smug smile on his face. _

"_Me?" Emmett asked in surprise, pointing to his chest. _

"_Yes, YOU. This all started because you just had to see what would happen if I ate the disgusting human food." Jasper answered. _

"_It's your fault too. If you had just let me hit you then I wouldn't have hit the vase." Emmett said. "Therefore, it's not my fault but yours." He said. They bantered on like this until the vase was all but forgotten. _

_End Flashback_

Esme had stopped cleaning and, now that she was done she put the glass in a plastic bag and began to jump on it- successfully smashing it to smithereens. There was no way that the two goofballs would be able to put it back together now. They were going to have to find an exact copy of Esme's favorite vase now. I could see in her head that she was going to let them struggle with it before she finally gave in and just said that they couldn't use the TV or Guitar Hero for a week.

Finally we got to the house and went to the front door. I stood in the front of it before turning around to face Emmett and Jasper.

"Watch your backs; we wouldn't want to lose you… would we?" I asked cryptically. Emmett and Jasper looked at me like I was crazy. I saw in their heads that they didn't have a clue as to what I was thinking about.

_What are you talking about Edward? - _Jasper.

_Dudes finally gone and lost his mind. –_ Emmett

I looked at Jasper first since he didn't think I was completely crazy. Then I motioned towards the house. It seemed to dawn on him at that moment that they had left the living room in complete disarray and then he remembered that both he and Emmett were to blame for the broken vase. If he could have blanched he would have. I saw Emmett flinch as he looked towards Jasper, who was apparently putting out stressed emotions. Jasper was closest to Emmett, so the anxiety hit him the hardest.

_Shit, damn it Edward, why didn't you tell __before __we got home?! – _Jasper

I looked at him and smiled in the most angelic way.

"Why, Jasper, wouldn't that ruin all the fun?" I asked him. He looked murderously at me for a second before going and hitting Emmett on the back of the head.

"Hey! Isn't that my job?!" Rosalie asked him.

"Rosieeee!" Emmett whined at her.

"What, you know I love you Emmybear." She batted her eyelashes at him. Oh, jeez, my gag reflexes started to kick in.

"Alright, come on you lovebirds; let's get in the house so Esme can kill Jasper and Emmett already." Of course, Alice had seen this play out already. Rosalie looked like she still didn't know what was going on. How could she have missed seeing what the living room looked like this morning? It was like a pack of wolves had gone through there. We walked into the house and the first thing that I noticed was that Esme had cleaned everything up spotlessly. We walked into the Living Room and Esme was sitting on the couch. In front of her, on the coffee table, sat a bag of splinters, which were the remains of her favorite vase. She looked at me and smiled. She then looked at Jasper and Emmett and gave them a Don't-mess-with-me-right-now look. She motioned for them to sit on the couch across from her. She waved her hand at us to show that we could go on but Alice, Rosalie, and I stayed, wanting to watch Emmett and Jasper get hollered at.

"Does anyone want to explain to me what happened to my vase?" She asked in a deadly-calm voice. Her tone had changed and Jasper and Emmett were gonna piss their pants.

"See. Uh, well. We…were gonna fix everything… and uh," Emmett stumbled as he spoke.

"It wasn't that, um…broken when w-we left. There were only a couple of pieces and were gonna crazy glue 'em back together, but, we, u-uh couldn't and we had to leave so the… um, stupid h-humans wouldn't suspect anything." Jasper stuttered out. If mom got mad there was no way you were going to try and mess with her.

"Does it look like you could crazy glue it back together now?" She asked them.

"N-no." They answered simultaneously.

"Well then I guess you going to have to try really hard then, aren't you?" She smiled as she left the room to go to the kitchen. Jasper and Emmett put puppy-dog faces on. Jeez, weren't they a little old for that now? They looked their soul mates in the eyes and said only thing that could be said at this moment.

"Do you know where the crazy glue is?" Rosalie smacked Emmett on the back of the head and Alice just shook her head at Jasper in mock disgust.

"Sorry, Jasper, homework." I just happened to know that Alice had finished her homework in 7.5 seconds this afternoon in the library while the humans weren't looking. It was one of the topmost thoughts in her head since she had set her own personal record.

"Emmett, I already told you on the way here, I have to paint my nails." Rosalie was nearly laughing in his face, but she managed to hold it back. How? I have no idea. Jasper and Emmett then turned to look at me. I was their last resort at a time like this when they knew there was no way in hell I was gonna say yes to their pitiful puppy looks.

"Come on Edward, PLEASSSSSEEEEEE" Emmett begged me in a little girl voice.

"Edward you HAVE to help us." Jasper whined. This was hilarious! They were going to have to grovel on their knees and I still wouldn't help, but I wasn't going to let it go that far.

"No way guys, you got yourselves into this mess, now you have to get yourselves out." I snickered on my way to the living room, messing with them was too fun. As I walked into the kitchen I saw Esme sitting at the island in the middle of room. She was looking over some blueprints for a new company building up in Seattle and thinking about how they got too full of themselves to even notice the countless mistakes.

Everything she thought was tinged with pain. I had expected the person who Jasper was felling the immense pain through was Esme, but there was only one thing that would cause her to feel that way and I hoped that it wasn't because of her daughter. If it was I'd have to discuss it with Carlisle again.

Esme knew she'd need to call the egotistical humans but she also knew that later Jasper and Emmett were planning on prank calling people to pass the time. I chuckled at her side thoughts. Then she thought about the one thing I didn't want her to.

"At least he didn't hear me earlier when I was thinking about HER." She went off on herself then, thinking about how she hadn't wanted me to hear that last part. I could feel the air in the room still around me and my smile slid off my face. She looked up at me, but not directly into my eyes. I sighed and she knew I was going to speak to Carlisle. It's what happened every time I caught her.

"Please, Edward?" She asked in a tiny voice. She was begging me not to talk to Carlisle. I could feel my heart drop from the sad, hurt expression she wore. Someone as kind and sweet as Esme should never have to go through this kind of thing.

"Esme… you know that Carlisle worries about you. You had reason enough to kill yourself while you were human, it's no different as a vampire." Was it really any different as a vampire for her? Was there anymore reason to live? I didn't think there was one for me, but was Esme the same? Of course not, even now I could hear her battling against one side of her that saw my point, but she fought on. She had Carlisle and she wouldn't leave him for anything.

"Edward, I won't leave my family." She said in a strong voice. I smiled.

"I know you won't Esme, we won't let you. We love you too much." I said. I may have no reason to live, but Esme did. I didn't have a soul but I couldn't doubt that Esme did, she was good, kind, loving, and she was going to stay that way for all eternity.

"Have you heard about the new family moving into town?" I asked her, trying to move away from the dreaded subject of her lost child. She looked at me like she was confused.

"I have, but their case is not the normal one." She said in a puzzled tone that matched her expression. What did that mean?

"What are you talking about, Esme?" I asked her, genuinely confused.

"It's just that when Carlisle got their old records transferred from the hospital in Banner Elk **(AN//:For all the smart-asses out there it's in North Carolina)** they were strangely healthy. A little TOO healthy." Her tone implied that they were out of the norm for a group of humans.

"You mean vampiric health?" I asked her in wonder.

She nodded.

**AN//: Well, watcha think of Esme's evil side? Keep reviewing and I'll keep typing! **

**_Special thanks to the reviewer who is (unlike my other one) isn't my beta - CarlisleEsmeFan thanks so much for reviewing._**

**To the rest of you - Review or no cookies ;)**


	3. Comprehension

**AN//: Hello chicas y chicos! Yes, I'm back again. 3 chapters in 3 days- _phew_ I'm exhausted. But no worries I've got it goin' so i'm good. For those of you who reviewed I love you for it and your virtual cookies are in the mail. **

**Disclaimer: (_sorry forgot about these earlier, some of you may share my views and think they're overrated.) _It all belongs to Stephenie Meyer- as if you didn't know that (insert eye roll here)- and she has graciously let me play around with her story line a bit.  
**

Edward's POV

"_It was so familiar_" those had been my thoughts from earlier… that would explain everything! The scent was familiar which was probably because the "person" was a vampire. The left over scent had proved that it was sweet. How could we have not noticed it before? By this time I had completely tuned out all of the thoughts in the vicinity of my power but I turned my attention back to Esme. Her thoughts were nearly in hysterics again. The immense pain was back and I went into panic. I could see in Alice's thoughts that Jasper was cringing in an attempt to hide the pain from her. Esme was about to have a mental breakdown.

None of us could really understand how traumatizing it was for her to have lost her daughter. Esme hand covered her mouth, trying to hold back her sobs, when she turned away and flew out of the house, faster than even I could have. Her pain gave her strength, but by the time that she was at her destination point then she would be exhausted. Her strength would fail her and then she would have to come back and explain. There was no way that I would be able to keep this from Carlisle now. She had gone hysterical and then run away sobbing all in one day.

The only thing that I didn't understand was _why _she had just freaked out like that. There was nothing around here that would have set her off and unfortunately I had blocked her thoughts from my mind and had no way of knowing what she had been thinking five seconds prior to my intrusion. If I just knew what she had been thinking all of this would have been solved easily. That wasn't the case and now I would have to go looking for her. The only thing worse than a mad Esme was an emotionally unstable Esme.

Nothing was working out how I expected it to today. All of the humans had gone completely insane over the arrival of some petty human- but we had just found out that said humans were actually vampires. That was what Esme had mentioned right before she'd broken down so apparently it was connected to them. My options right now were to either go looking for Esme now and hope that she would explain everything to me- which wasn't likely, or to wait for Carlisle to come home from his shift. I was leaning towards option two because Esme would probably want some time to collect herself. I decided to wait.

This wasn't going to be easy to explain to Carlisle. Of course, being the forgiving vampire that he is, he would wait patiently and let it slide that I had let Esme go off on her own. Usually he kept a close eye on her. Not that she was a spastic person or anything, but when someone was your true soul mate, you tended to want to keep them safe. That was one of the good things about being a mate less vampire. It meant less to look after. It was just you and whatever you kept close to you, which in my case was my family.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was 2:50pm which meant that Carlisle would be home in about four hours. That was more than enough time for Esme to pull herself together and get back to the house. She would probably be pretty closed off once she got back. I felt more than heard someone approach. Alice came gliding through the doors with Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett in tow. They had heard everything.

_Jeez, Eddie, what'd you do? _–Emmett.

You could see the laughter in his eyes, but I didn't join him in the fun. Alice was sober as well; my guess was that she had seen this a fraction of a second before it actually happened. Or at the very least she had seen Esme run from the room at the end of one of her visions. I sighed and even Emmett's head became silent. Alice's hand came to a rest on my shoulder.

"You are right to wait. Esme will come back." She said in a far-off tone.

"And Carlisle? What should I tell him?" I asked her reluctantly. She could tell that I didn't want Esme to get hurt anymore. There wasn't much that Carlisle could do. He could only watch and make sure she didn't go running off to Italy. The Volturi wouldn't want to upset him but if they were forced to they would kill one of his family members. Alice still hadn't answered. I looked up to read her expression but her eyes were closed.

"He will decide what is best for Esme when the time comes. For now- we wait." She answered. Although I was still thinking of different options I knew from Alice's thoughts that the future had been sealed. She saw no other happenings and I had learned long ago not to bet against Alice. Now I trusted her with all my being. I went off to the piano room. The ivory keys standing out proudly against the midnight black of the frame.

All of the little things in my world seemed to grow until they became my number one priorities. I used to think so little of Carlisle. In fact in the beginning I had hated him for changing me and turning me into a monster. I had even gone off on my own for a while, and now looking back on that time I could see just how much of a terror that decade turned out to be. My shame was gnarled and twisted, fitting into those ten years of loneliness and anger. I had, of course, come back to Carlisle-begging for his forgiveness and he had welcomed me with open arms, which was much more than I deserved.

Although my past thoughts remained untouched and unchanged they were still shadowed by my horrific actions. Most of the time I buried all of the memories- as Esme had done with the memories of her lost daughter. But at times I pulled them out of the steel vault to sulk in self-hatred. I knew it was unhealthy. I knew that it was downright ridiculous to submit myself to that kind of torture, but I deserved it. I was a- no _the _masochist but it wasn't that painful. It helped my memory at times and I could remember my human life in sharper clarity. Although that sounds really… what did people say today… "emo" it really wasn't. I wasn't a naturally morbid or dark person.

I just sometimes felt the need to look back on old memories that left me wallowing in my own pity. Wow. I really needed to get a new hobby. I sat down at the old bench and drummed my fingers on the keys, playing a few bars of Debussy's _Clair de Lune_**(AN//: come on people, I just had to include that)**. I looked at the clock and chuckled inwardly. I had been sitting here for an hour and a half, immersed in my thoughts.

It was despicable how all of the human's lives revolved around time. I don't see why they didn't just go by instinct like the rest of the animal kingdom. It was even stupider that they mocked the animal kingdom and thought that they were superior to all other creatures, but then they would do a complete 360 and run screaming from a bear because they knew that it could eat them. It would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that all of my family looked just like them but the second their blood was spilt we might go on a feeding frenzy that would destroy everything that we had worked for.

We were just as bad as the humans. Our kind, that is, vampires. We thought of ourselves as superior to the human race. The only problem with that little theory was that they held an unconscious control over us that even we could escape. My kind would become powerless if it weren't for human blood sustaining them. Or in our case, animal blood. They you look at my family and, again were as bad as both human drinking vampires, and the humans themselves. We viewed ourselves as superior to all animal races which wasn't the case. I'm veering off the subject.

Humans didn't follow their natural instincts. Any normal instincts would tell them to eat when they were hungry. Breathe when they needed oxygen, and deposit waste when needed. Unfortunately for the entire vampire race all of our instincts went against that except for eat when we're hungry. Everything else wasn't necessary.

I looked up at the clock again expecting about five minute to have passed. I was surprised to find that I had been sitting there for about three and a half hours. Esme should be back by now and Carlisle would be arriving home in half an hour. That gave me just enough time to sit down with Alice and Esme and discuss the afternoon's events. I stood up from the piano bench.

It wasn't abnormal for me to just sit by the piano and think. That was one of the purposes for this room in the first place. This was MY room. No one could disturb me here. I never felt the need to do something, nor was I under any pressure. The piano had been just a hobby when I was a human but now, among many other things it had swelled to become one of the top priorities of my existence. I looked at in with a critical eye. What drew me to it?

Forgetting my annoyance, I walked quickly to the kitchen to find Esme sitting at the island again. It was eerily like déjà vu. I came and sat across from her, exactly as before. I wanted to look into her mind and see what was bothering her so much but I knew that it would be an ungentlemanly thing to intrude upon her private thoughts. It was hard to block out the thoughts that swirled like a mini mass in her mind but I'd had practice with the particular situation before and Esme's thoughts were quiet and peaceful, unlike the loud, obnoxious thoughts that belonged to humans. I didn't say anything. She would speak when she was ready.

After what seemed like forever, Esme finally spoke.

"You may not understand why I took such offense to the arrival of the family, but if you feel the need, you may see for yourself. Esme was allowing me to freely dive into her mind. She exposed all of her secrets in those three words-"see for yourself". I sat there, shocked for a minute, until my better sense took hold of me and I delved deep into her mind. She automatically tried to block me at first but that was natural instinct. She stopped tensing after a moment and I sifted through her memories. If I had not searched hard while she was blocking me then I could have easily overlooked that many small side thoughts that weren't brought to the front of her mind. It was interesting finding out just how much I really could miss even while I was in their minds.

Fortunately, Esme had today's recent events at the front of her thoughts and I didn't have to intrude on the private matters that she wished to keep hidden. I saw how Carlisle had brought his bag home but had left it at the door in his haste to get home from work for our miniature family hunting trip. I saw how Esme had decided to stay home instead, seeing as she wasn't as thirsty as the rest of us. I saw how she picked up the bag with intentions of taking it straight to Carlisle's office and then going back to the living room to make sure that it was immaculate and any dust particles were to be destroyed.

I saw all of this but what had caught her attention was when the papers at the top of the bag had threatened to scatter all over her clean home and she had grabbed them just in time. She placed the bag down to make sure that everything was in perfect order but the neatly printed name on one of the folders had caught her eye. In Carlisle's bold handwriting there was a suspicious note off to the side. "_**PERFECT HEALTH**". _It had stuck Carlisle as odd because most humans never stopped complaining. The name of her lost daughter on the front of the folder had Esme dry sobbing within seconds even if there was no relation.

I saw a memory in Esme's memory **(AN: as confusing as that sounds I hope it makes sense)** of when Carlisle had gotten back from hunting before everyone else- because he was upset being away from Esme- and she had confronted him. Because of her hysterical sobs, Carlisle was quick to explain.

A group of particular "humans" were checked over by one of his Carlisle's colleagues- Dr. Douglas- but he was soon over come by the amount of work that the hospital had put on him. He had complained to Carlisle, during one of their breaks, how indescribably perfect they all were. They didn't yelp about cold stethoscopes. They had no unnecessary complaints of fevers or gurgling coughs. Nothing. There was nothing in their records of being sick, everything was clean.

Carlisle suspected them to be of our kind but he was not sure. Pictures were not mandatory for the Fork's hospital records and without a physical appearance to match with the description Carlisle didn't want to jump to any conclusions. He had calmed Esme down after that.

_There is no reason for alarm, my son_- Her soft spoken thought echoed in my head after the torrent of information. Esme was upset because someone who had the name of Esme's dead child would soon either have connections to our family, if they were vampires, or they would just be the new people in town, if they were humans. I hoped for the latter. If they were, indeed vampires, then they would be interacting with us and Esme had gone through enough pain to last her for the rest of her existence.

What hurt Esme the most was that because this person shared her dead child's name it reminded her that her daughter never got the chance to live, as we did or otherwise. Her heart was broken and she believed that there was no way to mend it. I shrank away from Esme's pain and flinched as she thought of the lost soul that never saw the light of day.

"And now you know." She whispered.

**AN//: Hope I did good! I don't know how I did on this one and I'm kind of nervous so- as always-**

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**For those of you who do review, I'll switch it up this time and make it truffles- I _love _me some truffles! For those of you who don't review- don't make me come and use vampiric power on you... or bite you...whichever comes first! =)  
**


	4. Gaining Interest

Esme's POV

Chapter 4

As I opened my mind to Edward I could tell that although he thought it was rude to intrude on my thoughts he also craved this one moment where he could occupy someone's mind without them resenting him for it. I let the memories from a few days ago flood the front of my mind and I thought of all the things that Carlisle had told me. As I did this I noticed that I also let go of all the emotions I had been holding back.

My pain entered my thoughts as well. I saw Edward flinch from the impact of the suffering I had gone through. It was enough that I had hurt him so I reined in my emotions. It seemed to calm him as he searched through the rest of my fore-mind. It was uncomfortable for him to be able to view everything going through my head. Alice had experience in blocking him and she had used one afternoon while he was hunting alone to teach the rest of the family to do the same. It was, at first, just for fun but it turned out that it came in handy later when there were things that we didn't want him to find out about.

Still I couldn't concentrate on what was going on around me when he was reading everything. I showed him all of what had happened the other day, when I had found the folder and the name. How my suspicions had risen when it said "***_PERFECT HEALTH***??? _" and how it had seemed to her like they were Vampires just by looking at the health record. I let shared with him all of my pain when I found the name on the inside. It had torn me apart and then I had confronted Carlisle.

Carlisle had tried to calm me to no avail and I had been nearly dry sobbing by the time he had managed to tell me that "No, he hadn't met them yet". Only Carlisle had understood how much it hurt me. He was the one who was there when I jumped of the cliff for my child. There was no way that he could understand. I wondered if I could block part of my thoughts from him instead of all of it. If I could just block my most morbid thoughts then I would be able to show him what I wanted. Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to do that as of yet. I felt his presence leave my mind.

"And now you know" I whispered, brokenly. He was lost in his thoughts about all that he had just read and it seemed to take a moment for him to register that I had even spoken. Then his face slowly transformed, it took on the pity that I so loathed. I looked away- not meeting his eyes. This wasn't what I wanted from him- I don't want pity I want acceptance. As soon as I had the thought Edward's expression transformed yet again, but this time into an unreadable look.

"Carlisle will be home soon," he said. There was no emotion in his voice, but I could sense that there was something he was holding in. I could hear Carlisle car in the distance, and it was approaching the house at rapid pace. I was sure that Edward hadn't told him anything yet, but ever since I had confronted Carlisle about the folder he had seemed to keep an abnormally close eye on me. I was slightly hurt that he didn't trust me.

"You know that he trust you Esme…" Edward said. I shook my head. I knew that he trusted me, it just wasn't the kind of trust that lasted me. He probably thought that I would go off to the Volturi the second that he turned his head the other way. Edward chuckled at that.

"He just wants you to be safe." Edward tried to reassure me. Again, I shook my head.

_He wants me to heal._ I thought sadly.

"Of course he wants you to heal Esme. We all do. But I also know that part of you wants to hold on to what little memory you have left of _her."_ I hissed in pain as he implied my daughter. Just the thought of her brought a choking lump to my throat- a human reaction that signaled crying. I refused to start sobbing in front of my son. "You don't want to heal completely because that would mean that you would have lose ALL of the memories and you're afraid of forgetting _her_." Again, he brought her up. Could he not give me time to regain my composure? A few more words out of him and I'd break down again.

"Maybe you need to let go and break down for once Esme." He said quietly. "Maybe you need one good crying jag. It may help." I knew that it would help because of the numerous time that I had already done it. But I was through being weak. The rest of the family found me pathetic already and, just like a few moments ago, I could see the pity in their eyes.

"We don't think that your weak, Esme." He told me, his voice gaining a bit of steel. "We love you and we don't want you to hurt. The thing that you think is pity in our eyes- it's grief. We all grieve for your daughter because if she had turned out to be as kind hearted and compassionate as you then there is no way that we would have missed out on the chance to know her." By the end of his rant he was close to screaming at me. It wasn't that he was trying to be mean. He was frustrated and angry.

I jumped up and hugged him. I sobbed into his arm and he held on to me tight, knowing that I just needed to cry for once. I was so happy and sad at the same time. Had Jasper been in the room his head would have exploded by the amount of emotions that I was sending out. I had been so wrong about my family. I had made so many assumptions that I didn't take the time to think about how the loss of my daughter would affect them. Well, technically it _she _didn't affect them, her loss affected me which in the long run affected them. **(A/N: Wow, head rush-too many **_**affect**_**'s in that sentence.) **

I heard the front door open and Edward stepped back to let another pair of arms enveloped me. I could only hear a hum in place of the calming words that Carlisle was trying to tell me. After about ten minutes my dry sobs stopped and I was able to breathe again. I raised my head to find that Carlisle had moved me onto the couch and I was leaning on his shoulder. There was no hope for his tear-stained shirt that I had just ruined.

"Carlisle perhaps you should explain this to the rest of the family." Edward said. At first I thought that he was talking about how I was crying. Then I realized that they were having a silent conversation.

"What are you talking about?" I asked in a timid tone. Edward looked at me, probably surprised that I could speak in a steady voice.

"The new people in town." He replied, testing me to see if I was capable of holding it together when we discussed them. I nodded. I held my head high, acting confident, and made sure my control wouldn't slip- that I wouldn't start sobbing again, but that was all that I could do-act. This would probably bring up old memories that I had buried with the years. I would try to stay numb.

The rest of the family filed into the room quietly. They thought I wasn't stable enough for loud noises. Alice and Rosalie came to sit by my sides. After Carlisle, they were the ones who knew exactly how much losing my daughter hurt me. We were three women frozen in time who would never be able to have their own children. At times we shared the pain. Alice wrapped her petite arms around my waist, giving me a tight hug, and Rosalie took my hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.

Carlisle sat down. "Alright, so as you know there is a new family who has just moved into town. We've had our suspicions about the being an abnormal group based on their superior health. Those suspicions were confirmed as of today." He said in a lecturing voice. The rest of the family nodded, acknowledging the fact that these new comers were vampires. He still hadn't told us the piece of information that we most wanted to hear. He broke out into a handsome grin, Alice along with him- she had already foreseen this.

"They are vegetarians." He said, his grin only getting brighter with each word. I felt Rosalie give a sigh of relief. Although she may seem cold on the outside she cared deeply about everyone in this family and she didn't want a territorial dispute with these vampires. This new caused everyone else to smile as well. These were the only vampires outside of the Denali coven that we knew who were animal drinkers. In a world where human blood drinkers ruled, the vegetarians like us were frightfully small in numbers. We had a chance at making new allies and friends with this new people. It excited me as well as unnerved me.

If we became friends that meant that I'd be bringing up my daughters name more and more. That could be one of the most painful things that I've done in my century of life. Carlisle interrupted my thoughts.

"The leader of the coven may seem young but she is also powerful. I don't know the extent of her power. I was only able to meet one of the coven members and she said that they would have to speak to all of them together. Although, I haven't met the leader personally, the coven member- Lilliana, I think it was- spoke highly of her therefore I think that the bonds between this coven are unbelievably strong. They have only three members in the coven and the bonds of a large vegetarian coven are fairly strong as it is. I believe that having a smaller group would only increase that effect."

"There are three members of the coven, including one couple and the leader. The two posing as the couple are also posing as the parents…" Carlisle continued to explain but I tuned him out. One thought had just crossed my mind and I needed to focus on blocking Edward from it, seeing as I wanted to keep him in the dark.

If there was one couple and one leader in this coven, and the coven leader was female, then there was a good chance that we could combine our covens if they became friends. I still worried about Edward and if he made friends with the leader there was a chance at him finding a mate.

Alice went stiff next to me and then as she came out of her vision she smiled widely at me and I grinned back at her. I had just made a decision and from the look on her face something good would result from it. Carlisle was still speaking to the rest of the family, so I don't think that anyone saw our exchange. Alice gave me a look that clearly said we would talk about the vision later.

In the fore front of my mind I was using the roman numerals to transfer the date of natural disasters but that was to block Edward. In the back of my mind I was trying to think of what Alice's visions might hold. How I love my family.


End file.
